My name is Todd Silverstein and I am the Chief Operating Officer of the Ben’s Restaurant Group. I have worked closely with Ronnie for over thirty years during which time he has been both a good friend and invaluable mentor. I began this journey in the Walt Whitman Mall where Ronnie built a Ben’s Express Deli. My first Ben’s management position was in our Carle Place location in the fall of 1992. At that point, things changed for me as I now found my new career path. I have been the General Manager of the Ben’s in Greenvale, Woodbury, and now back to Greenvale where I was able to work with and interact with Ronnie on an almost daily basis. Over these thirty years, I have catered large corporate BBQ’s, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, birthday parties on and off premises, engagement parties, weddings as well as going to out of town synagogues from venues as far away as Arizona, Vermont, Washington, D.C., while our Boca Raton location takes care of the state of Florida going from south Florida to Jacksonville in northern Florida. What makes this truly amazing is that we are now catering events for the offspring of those who we catered their bris, bar and bat mitzvahs, engagements, and weddings so many years ago.
Fast forward now to 2022 where we are celebrating 50 years in business.
I am responsible for leading a great team of over 240 employees. My goals are simple. Continue to keep the tradition alive while adapting to this very changing world with all the challenges we now face. With the dining rooms seeing a nice uptick in business, we will once again have weekend dinner specials in addition to the weekday dinner specials, we now offer. Sometime in the early winter we hope to engineer a Meatless Monday menu. All Ben’s locations now have gluten free bread and our plant-based menus and vegetarian options will continue to expand and be refined. Our Supervising Chef Atilio Celis will be coming to your local Ben’s in the coming months. Lastly, Ronnie’s daughter, Jaime Passy, has become involved with Ben’s overseeing our social media working closely with our Marketing Manager, Mr. Al Olle.
We thank you for helping us to keep the tradition alive and as my good friend and mentor Ronnie would say…
Hope to see you all at the deli soon,
Todd Silverstein
Chief Operating Officer
Ben’s Restaurant Group
